NEC's New Face-Detecting Cameras: Is Big Brother Finally Coming?

If you thought cameras that could read your license plate were an invasion of privacy, you're not going to like NEC's new camera system that they unveiled yesterday. It's a face-recognition system that's designed to ID people while they're in their cars. It'll initially be used at the Hong Kong border, where people with national ID cards can get through faster by being verified by the cameras. That doesn't seem all too bad, but you can imagine the slippery slope that this puts us on, and it's not pretty.This will inevitably come over here to the States, and lawmakers could have them set up to do everything from identifying you at toll booths to busting you for talking on your cellphone while driving. If the tech gets even more advanced, we could see this sort of thing in airports, on streets, in the mall and set up in the cameras that are already all over the place in metropolitan areas. Basically, if the government has your face on file, which is certainly possible with the National ID card that some lawmakers are trying to push through, you could be tracked almost everywhere without them having to implant you with some RFID tag or something. It's kind of paranoid, I know, but it's not all too far-fetched.

And while I don't break the law all too often and don't think I'm on any terrorist watchlists, the idea of the government having the ability to find me and know what I've been doing at any given time really gives me the creeps. What do you guys think? Am I overreacting, or is this the type of technology that will make it so easy for the government to track us that they won't be able to say no? [NEC via Pink Tentacle]